


The Void Stares Back

by aleria



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon Universe, Coming of Age, Depression, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Horror, Nightmares, Pidge POV, Post Season 2, Pre Season 3, Serious, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-23 05:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11982741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleria/pseuds/aleria
Summary: The darkness in front of her was so real, she wanted to reach out and touch it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something serious. 
> 
> If you are seeking my fluffy stories, they are that way ----------->

The Crack opened up in the Castle late one night. In the darkness of space, Pidge Holt learned why they said that time is a construct. The Castle had its own system of time, in order to keep everyone on a functional schedule, but there were days when she woke in the middle of a sleep cycle to watch the ship pass a brilliant white sun. Other times when she was supposed to be awake and working she would be surrounded by nothing but deep dark space.

Landing planetside should have helped, but the varied time zones, daily cycles and light quality on each planet only served to give the team a strange, slow burning jet lag that they never could quite shake.

So it was night time according to the Castle when the Crack opened. The alarms woke them in their beds, if not out of their sleep. Pidge was awake, at least, and if she knew anything about the others, they were likely coasting on a thin veil of slumber that never really took the fatigue out of their eyes.

“Paladins, there is a problem in the aft guest wing,” came the direct, stern voice of their Princess. “We don’t know what has caused the alarm. Be prepared.”

So Pidge discarded her sleepwear for her white and black paladin suit with a swift efficiency that she prided herself with. The alarms were sending adrenaline through her body and she felt like a dried up river after rain. After weeks of poor sleep and confused schedules, a fight was needed to make her feel alive again.

Not that Pidge ever enjoyed violence-- she didn’t think any of her team did. There was no denying that they were becoming desensitized to it, though. Each fight was a little less frightening than before, and the last time they had fought their enemy, Lance and Keith had actually been keeping score. All the gravity of attacking and destroying was being lost in the minds of impressionable teenagers. The thought should give Pidge pause, but she was no better than the others. She prided herself in her efficiency and tact in removing obstacles.

The aft guest wing was an area of the ship they rarely visit. On a board this size, there are rooms and rooms of empty space, meant to be filled with a whole army of Alteans. The guest wings were meant for distinguished guests, such as generals, kings and diplomats, and Princess Allura strictly forbade the paladins from using them for their own.

Pidge met Hunk outside his room. It was nowhere near her own, but he always took longer to suit up than her. She could depend on him to be out of his door around the same time she came racing past.

“What’s going on?” he asked with his usual worried expression. He, at least, looked like he might have been woken up from a deep sleep.

“I don’t know,” Pidge admitted. “But it can’t be Galra or another enemy fleet or else we would be sent to our lions.”

They ran together, their suit making loud footfalls on the metallic ground. They heard Keith and Lance from another hallway, and met them at a crossroads before descending to the aft guest wing.

Allura and Coran were waiting outside a large doorway that might have led to any room in the castle. Allura was in her battle suit, but her posture suggested she was not prepared for a fight. Coran was yanking at his moustache as if it had grown overnight and he needed it removed. 

“It’s in there,” Allura said when they all arrived. She made no mention of what ‘it’ was, and instead pressed the button that made the door open with a soft ‘swish’. “Do not get too close. We aren’t yet sure what it is.”

It was a large room, brightly lit as were most in the castle. Altean hangings decorated the walls and a huge, four-postered bed acted as a centerpiece to the room. A large window showed the dazzling stars of space beyond. 

At first, it looked like there was a shadow in front of the bed, as if something blocked the florescent lights. But as they slowly filed into the room, they saw that the dark place blotted out anything behind it, as if it was a material object. It was long and tall, on a slight angle as if leaning to the side. As Pidge watched it, she imagined she saw it expand and contract slowly, but she could not be sure.

“What the _hell_ is that?” asked Lance, because he was always the first one to talk. No one was able to follow up with an answer, but one by one, they turned their eyes on Pidge. 

She was, after all, the resident child genius. She should have been flattered that they assumed she would have an answer right away, but the fact that she didn’t have one made her frustrated with their gazes.

“I’ll have to run some tests,” she said finally, giving over to her sense of curiosity. She stepped forward, two meters away from the anomaly. It definitely seemed to shift every so often, but she could not tell if that was because her eyes were getting closer to it. She pulled out her Altean tablet, intending to start taking readings straight away. Everyone else, annoyingly, seemed intent on waiting for her to find an answer. “It’ll take a while,” she admitted. “Just… go back to bed.”

“Do you need any help?” Hunk asked, and he put his big hand on Pidge’s shoulder. Hunk was predictably friendly, and Pidge almost wanted to say yes to him, but then she saw the black rings under his eyes and told him he could find her in the morning.

The others left her to their own rooms, and whether they rested or not, she could not be sure. At first, they had all chosen dorm rooms that were near to each other. It made them feel a little less isolated in the giant space ship. But then the night terrors started, and guiltily, they each found an excuse to pull away until they found solitude.

And Pidge wasn’t the only one screaming. She had heard Lance crying at night, Keith waking to yells and even Hunk occasionally woke with a cry. They were all being affected by the trauma of war, whether it be the violence, or the loss of family, or each of their deep, unsettling feeling of guilt over losing their leader.

Shiro had never yelled in his sleep. But he was gone now, and that was part of the problem.

Everyone had their way of coping. Hunk was the most grounded, but even he needed to bake to make himself feel better. Allura and Coran stayed up late talking and probably drinking. Lance and Keith had each other, however much they tried to keep their nighttime rendezvous a secret from everyone else. 

Pidge had her work, and her mission to find her family, but clinging to these were like trying to fly with a handful of feathers. She could feel the rope bridge failing under her feet and below was a deep, dark nothingness.

The darkness in front of her was so real, she wanted to reach out and touch it. She decided her hand was not the best tool for testing, however, and set to work using the Castle’s array of advanced technologies to discover the nature of the anomaly. She summoned her latest helper bot to bring her tools and materials, and by the time ‘morning’ broke, she had set up a sort of containment chamber.

Allura was the first to arrive back, looking no less tired than she had when she left. “Any progress?”

Pidge pressed a button on her tablet and lights on the three arms of her testing cradle glowed red. It was not a chamber, so much as a marked area to denote the borders of the experiments. The three arms of the cradle also served to show how close one could get to the anomaly.

Because the only thing Pidge had learned was that the darkness was very, very dangerous. One of the tests involved launching objects at it. She watched as an Altean plate, which, so far as Pidge knew, was made of a sort of synthetic clay, was crushed into a speck of dust.

“It isn’t quantifiable,” Pidge began. “It acts like a black hole: lights goes in, and doesn’t come out. Matter is compressed a billion times. And yet it doesn’t seem to have a gravity. If a black hole suddenly appeared in the Castle, there wouldn’t _be_ a Castle anymore, much less a solar system.” 

Allura looked deeply disturbed, and she watched the darkness as though it might suddenly launch forward and crush her alive. And for all Pidge knew, it might do just that. “Where did it come from, though? How is it here?”

Pidge shrugged and shook her head. She wasn’t ready to answer the ‘why’ questions before she properly answered the ‘what’. Allura left her to it and Pidge got the impression she was uncomfortable being in the same room as the anomaly. That went for the others, who visited sparingly throughout the rest of the day. Hunk brought a meal halfway through the day, Lance sauntered in because he was bored, and even Keith made a brief appearance.

Back at the Garrison, Pidge was known for pulling all nighters to work on a project. She had that kind of intense focus that didn’t let her rest until she had a satisfactory product or answer. But by the 32nd hour, Allura came by to tell Pidge to go to bed.

“I know you haven’t slept yet,” she said after sitting down beside Pidge. Pidge was cross legged, running calculations through a program she had just made for testing. The numbers were starting to look wrong, so she conceded that Allura might be right.

The Princess was someone Pidge hadn’t really figured out yet. Maybe it was her own fault, never having any girlfriends at the Garrison or as a child. Pidge had spent her whole life with guys, and seldom met girls who she got along with. But Allura defied many of the stereotypes Pidge had assigned to her own sex, and if she thought understanding girls was hard, then the Princess was impossible. She went from being strong and fierce to being soft and relatable in the same moment. Just when Pidge thought she had a healthy respect for Allura as a superior, she would sit down beside her on the floor and suddenly become an equal.

“I can watch it, if you want,” Allura offered. She was hiding it well, but she was still afraid of the darkness. 

Pidge shook her head. “It doesn’t need watching. It hasn’t grown in 32 hours, so I think we can trust it for now. I will leave a bot here, just in case.” She stood and stretched, and her knees popped in protest. She could feel Allura watching her and she was afraid she would see a worried look in her eyes. It was another one of those things she hadn’t figured out yet. 

Allura stopped her in the hallway with a hand on her shoulder. “Take care, Pidge.” Her voice was soft and understanding but Pidge could not raise her eyes. 

“Good night.”


	2. Chapter 2

Pidge didn’t remember what she dreamt about. The pictures slid through her head like a film of camera spinning out of control, so she could only grasp onto still images of violent action scenes. More than anything the dreams are lingering feelings that she can’t shake even after she had woken up. They are feelings of guilt, desperation and fear, but layered back and forth on each other like steel on the forge. She was a thin sheet of compressed emotions, as each day she pounded them down with her hammer. 

She was sitting upright, sheets tangled amongst her legs, body still shaking from the vivid and forgettable nightmare. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears, forcing the fear through her veins. She wasn’t screaming anymore, because she could hear her laboured breath.

In her head was an image of her brother, her father, and Shiro. It was overlayed with a picture of grinding red gears, and another of the vastness of space. Each scene caused a wave of nauseating panic to roll through her, and she forced herself to forget them before she was overcome. 

She slipped out of the clammy bed and into the relative safety of her daytime clothes. Her sweater had a hold in the front-- tiny, but the sight of it reminded her that these last ties with Earth culture would not last forever. 

No one stopped Pidge as she made her silent way back to the aft guest wing. The door was closed, but unlocked. It struck her as strange that she might expect it to be locked-- as if Allura wanted to keep them out of the room. Or, perhaps, keep something in.

The darkness was still there, a tear in the space that made up the room. Nothing had changed since Pidge last left it, but somehow stepping into the room felt different than before. There was a blank, emptiness in the air that seemed to clear the mind. Before setting to work, Pidge stood in front of the void to consider it.

Staring at the black nothingness was easier than thinking about dreams. The darkness had no stars or reflections to remind one of the reality of life and the universe. It wasn’t warm or welcoming, yet it had the refreshing feeling of a blank slate. Perhaps this was what the universe looked like before it began-- new and untouched by light.

The calculations were easier to read now, though Pidge isn’t sure she managed to sleep longer than a few hours. These, too, gave her a sense of calm. Numbers were never attached to emotions or memories-- they were cold and hard, like the darkness. And working in this way gave Pidge a sense of purpose and she was driven the way she always was when she had a new project. 

The rest of the team was kept busy with a mission to a gas planet. It was rich with deposits of a rare metal that could be collected on the floating islands that lingered precariously in the atmosphere. It was a heavy lifting job, and no one really expected Pidge to take part. She had several days of solitude as a result and she spent them in the aft guest wing.

Curiously, that ambiguous measure of time that they all adhered to melted away when one was left alone. There was no daytime or nighttime, only times when Pidge was hungry or sleepy. The stars were even present outside, giving no hint of a normal schedule. Occasionally one of the other paladins would visit, but their sleep schedules were often as scattered and confused as her own. Their time with her was fleeting and superficial; no more than courtesy visits. Hunk would sometimes bring food, Lance attempted to tell stories, and Shiro would fret. Pidge would answer when she was questioned and listen when they talked, but her work took most of her concentration. They would leave eventually, and she would honestly feel relieved.

Finally, the third time she felt the call of exhaustion, she decided to stay in the room. The big bed was made up with simple, soft linens in patterns of blue and white. There was a canopy, but Pidge did not draw the curtains, and instead watched the darkness at the foot of the bed.

That night her dreams were vivid and memorable. She often dreamt of her father and brother, and sometimes they were good dreams. She would relive memories or imagine futures that they would spend together. Far more frequent were the nightmares, however. There were uncountable scenes of horror and loneliness; images of death and pain. Her imagination, which was an asset in her waking life, was her downfall at night. 

Tonight her mind gave her new reasons to fear closing her eyes. She saw an image of Matt, half his body missing, reaching out to her. When he spoke he whined and keened like a dying animal. The wound on the side of his body split and heaved, until a black shadow slipped out like a baby being born of blood and puss.

Pidge woke with a start that had her crying out. The Altean sheets were sticking to her legs and arms, as though she was slick with blood. The pulse in her ear did not drown out the horrifying keening sound that leaned about the room. In a rush of panic, Pidge untangled herself and illuminated the lights in the room.

The darkness-- the Crack, as she had started to call it-- was crying out like a wounded animal. There was no doubt in her mind that the noise was coming from there, and she sat in her bed, frozen in terror. The sound would rise and fall, not in regular intervals like an alarm, but in an organic, uneasy way. 

Pidge slowly moved, eyes glued to the Crack. It did not move as she retrieved her glasses and slipped out of the bed. The sound did not change beyond fluctuating like a temperamental wind.

“Pidge, what’s happening?” came a voice at the door. Pidge had not noticed Shiro opening it, and still she made no movement to look at him. She felt as though taking her eyes off of the Crack would give it the chance it was waiting for.

“I don’t know,” she said with a cracked voice. Her heart was beating so fast she was afraid it was going to give out. She had to think rationally and find the source of the sound, she knew. But the wailing almost sounded human and her mind was still on her horrifying dream. The waking part of her told her that the sound was a useful clue to discovering what the anomaly was. The part of her that was still asleep told her it sounded like Matt.

“Is it dangerous?”

Pidge took a step closer. The sound was coming from a spot in the centre of the void, but it all she could see there was more darkness. “No more than before,” she said in a faint voice. An impulse was telling her to reach out and touch that spot in the middle. “I need to record the sound,” she went on, the scientist in her finally waking up. “Measure the decibels, look for different frequencies.”

“Have you been sleeping in here?”

Pidge shot Shiro a quick look. He had took a few steps towards the bed and seen the mess of sheets there. “Yes.”

“Pidge, you can’t sleep in the same room as that thing,” he said with all authority. Not for the first time, Pidge found herself bristling at the tone that suggested that someone knew better than she. 

“I can sleep wherever I want.”

Shiro turned to face her, a frown crossing his face. “No, you can’t,” he said firmly. “We don’t know how dangerous this thing is yet, and now that it’s making that noise--” His eyes grazed the Crack, and it seemed as if he shivered. “No more. Sleep in your room.”

Pidge turned back to her computer, which was flashing on the ground. “It’s not dangerous,” she said stubbornly. “I’ve been in the same room all the time and nothing has happened. Don’t try to tell me you know more than I do. I _know_ about this void, Shiro. I’ve been studying it.”

“Then what is it?”

The question hung in the air, conflicting with the keening sound. It was the question that had been lingering in Pidge’s brain for days and nights, if such things really existed. Didn’t Shiro understand how hard she was working to answer that very question? She felt her temper rising, fueled by anxiety and sleeplessness. 

She sat down heavily and started addressing the alarms that were flashing on her computer screen. “I don’t know. Not yet.”

Shiro had released a breath, which told Pidge that he was starting to give in. But he didn’t leave yet, and lingered not far from where she sat. “Pidge, _please_...”

“Leave me alone,” Pidge snapped, feeling a rise of heat in her head. The sound was not waning, and it was tugging at her brain like an impatient child. She wanted to slap it, or embrace it.

She did not look up to see Shiro leave and the sound of the door closing was masked by the mournful wail of the Crack.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn’t only Shiro who was trying to get in the way of Pidge’s project. Leaving the aft guest room was inevitable, if only to seek out food and to relieve oneself. Pidge was on the way back from the kitchen, considering the possibility of stocking up on energy bars the next time she had a chance, and returned to discover the door to the aft guest room was locked. She couldn’t quite explain the ripple of panic that rolled over her body.

She found Shiro in the common area moments later. Her breath was laboured from her sprint and her head was spinning from anger. She hadn’t expected to be met with each of the paladins, and Coran and Allura too. They were watching her as she stopped to catch her breath in the doorway and as suddenly as Pidge had appeared, she was gone again. She hadn’t spotted Hunk, however, who was in the hallway instead of the room.

“Come on, Pidge,” he said gently, and Pidge hated how he sounded like he was talking to a wild horse. “Let’s talk.”

Pidge seriously considered testing Hunk’s reflexes. If she could just get to her lab, she could find the tools she needed to unlock the door to the aft guest room. But Hunk was closing in on her and he took up an unreasonable amount of space in the narrow hallway. Pidge was forced to back down and be led into the room. She looked around defiantly at each face, ignoring how worried they looked and instead letting their unification fuel her anger. 

“So what the hell is this,” she snapped. “An intervention?” Everyone seemed to shift uncomfortably on their couches, and Pidge made no move to sit. Hunk was still standing behind her, like a guard.

“Pidge,” Shiro started, and almost instantly she imagined hitting him _hard_. “You have been spending way too much time down there. We’ve been talking and we decided that you need to take a break.”

“What I don’t understand,” Pidge interrupted, because of course Lance was about to add his two cents. “Is why no one cares that there is a fucking _hole_ in the fucking _universe_.” She was letting days of poor sleep and suppressed anxiety filter out of her mouth in the form of spitting anger. The others looked shocked, but her eyes were only for Shiro. “I am trying to find out what the damn thing is to keep you all _safe_ and you feel like you need to talk behind my back about what a bad idea it is?!”

“We appreciate your efforts Pidge--” 

Pidge cut off Allura, because she didn’t want to hear her voice right now. “We have _no idea_ what that thing is! We don’t know if it’s dangerous or friendly or a portal to another world! I need to find out-- _You_ need me to find out!”

The others were at a loss for words, apparently, which was great because Pidge wanted to wrap this crap up and get away before she said something she would regret. Her head was felt heavy and a pain was starting to blossom in her gut. If the anger was to recede, she would notice the other emotions lingering in the depths: guilt, fear and loneliness. Unwilling to face those things, she let the rage boil on.

“We’re trying to _help_ , Pidge!” Keith spoke up. Thank God she could depend on him to put up a fight.

“I don’t _need_ any help,” she insisted, spreading her arms for emphasis. “I need to get back to work.”

Shiro stood up off the couch. He was tall, but his shoulders seemed to stoop and his face was grim. “We can’t let you do that.”

“Bullshit. You can’t stop me.”

“I can try.”

“Shiro,” Allura said sharply. “We aren’t _forcing_ Pidge to do anything. We’re here to tell you that we want to support you, Pidge. We want you to do your work and eat properly. We want you to sleep.”

A silence settled over the room. Over the profound sound, Pidge though she could hear the distant keening sound coming from the Crack. She had to get back down there to find out what that sound really was.

“You aren’t my mother, Allura,” she said with more venom than was necessary. Pidge heard the words that she spoke, but couldn’t remember speaking them. She bit down hard on the side of her tongue until she felt the metalic taste of blood in her mouth. It did nothing to bring her back down to Earth, so instead she turned on her heels and stared Hunk down until he reluctantly stepped out of her way.

It was easy to hack into the door’s locking mechanism. Pidge had done it before, and it was a wonder that they thought they could keep her out. Nonetheless her hands were shaking as she fumbled with the interface of her tablet and the cloud in her head allowed her to make mistakes. When the door finally opened, the hallway was filled with the wailing from the Crack. The mournful sound pulled at Pidge’s heart and she was drawn to the centre of the room.

It sounded like Matt-- Pidge was sure of that now. He had been sick once, when she was very young. Her memory of that time was hazy, but she had heard his weak, wailing voice carrying down the stark hospital hallway. The Crack sounded so much the same that she found herself smelling disinfectant and seeing the florescent lights from that time. 

Pidge both wanted and didn’t want for it to be possible. The idea made her shiver and laugh until she was reduced to dry, quiet sobs. The memory of her dream replayed in her mind. Matt had been reaching for her, as if he was so close to reuniting with all she had to do was reach back. She looked at the Crack with sorrowful desperation, wanting to tell Matt that she was sorry that she hadn’t cracked the puzzle yet. She had to try harder-- to find out what the Crack was and why it sounded like him.

Pidge looked in her hand and realized she had summoned her bayard at some point. She wasn’t even wearing her paladin armor and hadn’t for days. She took it as a sign, and lifted the weapon slowly. What did she need to do? Should she attack the void, breaking it open further and force it to reveal its mysteries to her?

“Pidge.” Of course it had to be Shiro. Pidge lowered her bayard but did not turn to face him. She was so tired of fighting, but she could not back down. Not when she felt like she was teetering on the verge of discovery.

“I’m done talking to you, Shiro,” she said quietly. Talking to him was making her head and her gut hurt worse than before.

“I am only going to say this one more time,” he said, with a slow and steady voice. “You need to stop this: you are obsessed. You need to think about your health and the team.”

“Obsessed?!” Pidge rounded on Shiro, the sound of wailing ringing in her ears. “Shiro, don’t you understand what I am doing here?”

Shiro blinked in surprise and Pidge noticed that Allura was standing not far behind him.

“Listen, Shiro. Don’t you hear it?” Pidge could hear the desperation in her own voice. “It’s _Matt_. That’s his voice!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t you remember what he sounds like?”

Shiro looked from Pidge’s face to the Crack and back again. His mouth was open, but no words were coming out.

“You’ve _forgotten_ him!” Pidge wanted to heed the voice in her mind that was telling her to stop and listen to what she was saying. But another voice was telling her to push and push until everyone else understood. “You promised me we would find him!”

“This isn’t finding him, Pidge,” Shiro said fiercely, and his tone of voice should have made Pidge back down, but she was on another plane.

“Stop it!” she spat. “Why can’t you _trust_ me? Why can’t any of you believe in what I am doing?!” Shiro took a step forward and Pidge lashed out, pushing at his chest hard with one hand. He stumbled back in surprise. “Why don’t you want to find Matt?!”

A hand was placed gently on her bayard, and Pidge flinched when she saw that she held it aloft, as if about to strike. Allura’s long, delicate fingers closed around Pidge’s wrist and slowly pulled her arm down. She was strong, but Pidge did not resist, and watched the action with stunned silence. Then Allura put her other hand on Pidge’s cheek and looked at her with soft, indigo eyes. 

Something broke inside of Pidge and she felt her knees go out under her. She sank to the floor, letting her bayard fall with a clatter on the ground. She was dimly aware of a gentle arm lifting her to her feet and guiding her back to her room. Her bed was cold and empty, but when she closed her eyes, she was asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

“There’s something wrong with me.”

Pidge had said this sentence to herself many times since she woke up. Each time she said it her voice sounded further away until she was sure that someone else was speaking. She imagined that if she turned her head to look in the dark corner of the room she would see a figure there, waiting for her to finally get out of bed so it could devour her alive.

Everything hurt. An ever persistent headache throbbed in her brain and her muscles ached as though she had been training. Her stomach was twisted in knots and it felt like someone was pulling a knife through her guts.

Her heart hurt, too, like someone was trying to manually pump the blood through her veins. The squeezing sensation was also true for her chest and head, as though she had her own black hole that was threatening to pull her into herself.

But what was wrong with Pidge was not a physical symptom. Something was wrong with _hermissing_.

She had wanted to hurt Shiro. She wanted to hurt him so badly that she had actually raised a weapon to him and if it hadn’t been for Allura, she might have actually struck. What was wrong with Pidge was that somewhere along the way her conscious had slipped through the cracks in her chest, leaving a dark void behind. She was just a hollow husk of a person.

And someone like her was not meant to be a paladin of Voltron.

She rose from her bed, still fully clothed from the night before. Someone had taken off her glasses, so she reached for them to put them on. Her other normal morning routines usually involved washing up, remotely checking the statuses of her experiments and doing a few energizing exercises. But she had no thought for such things anymore. She wondered how she ever was able to put together the semblance of a normal life. Out here on the edge of a galaxy there was no ‘normal life’. Time and space had no meaning, and life was only a series of moments during which people and events bounced off each other randomly.

‘Meaning’ was finishing a project and solving a problem. ‘Meaning’ was finding one’s family.

Pidge walked like the dead down the quiet hallways to the aft guest wing. The wailing was muffled by a closed door, but it was not locked-- not this time. Pidge paused before entering the room, her memories of the night before fresh in her mind. 

Guilt was a hard feeling to swallow. It kept coming back up like a stomach full of bile, threatening to choke. Pidge never wanted to see Shiro or Allura’s face again. She never wanted to see her own face again. The only thing that was worth looking at was the dark emptiness that sat inert in the centre of the room.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the Crack, her voice just audible over the sad keening. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find you. I tried-- I really did. But I am too small-- I’ve used myself all up and there’s nothing left to give. Well, there’s one thing.” Pidge felt like she was standing over a pit, held aloft by her earthly cares. And those were starting to ebb away. “My life is worthless. I’m-- I don’t have it in me to be a paladin. I can’t protect my friends. I can’t protect my family. Even from myself.” Far from wanting to cry, the words were leaving her like the last few drops in a bottle and she was soon going to be truly empty. “But if you’re in there, then maybe--” She paused, because she didn’t really know what was going to happen. “Maybe we’ll see each other again. Maybe I can someday deserve to see you again.”

Pidge closed her eyes and thought about Matt. She tried to remember the good times, when he laughed or smiled or teased, but the wailing was filling her ears. His face seemed far away, too, as though she had only ever seen him from a distance. When she tried to focus on it, it was splattered with blood with dead, unseeing eyes.

There was only one thing left to do. The void was calling her, singing in that horrible, keening voice. It was promising answers and an end to her quest. It was offering oblivion. Then she could really, truly rest. Then she could see Matt.

When she opened her eyes the Crack looked different but she wasn’t sure how. Was it a different pitch of black? Had it gotten bigger? She stepped forward to inspect it and the hairs on her arms stood up, reaching for that impossible gravity in the centre. What would it feel like, stepping into the abyss? Would it be painful, or would everything end in the blink of an eye? Would it be like stepping through a door? What would be on the other side?

Pidge was a scientist, after all. She would always pursue the unknown. She would always seek to answer the questions.

She took another step, and she couldn’t hear the sound anymore. She was so close, and all she saw or heard was nothingness. It was peaceful and painful at the same time.

Suddenly the feeling came back to her in a violent way as the floor came rushing up to meet her. Pain bloomed in the side of her head where she knocked hard on the metallic ground. Her vision faltered and then returned as she blinked wildly. A heavy weight was leaning on her, but she didn’t have the strength to shrug it off.

“You can’t!” someone yelled in her ear. Then he drew in a deep breath, shuddering and weak. “I won’t _let you_.” Shiro’s voice was cracking and Pidge felt him drop his forehead onto her arm. He wasn’t quite cradling her, but he would not remove the arm that was strapped over her torso. 

Pidge raised a hand to her own forehead and pulled her knees up to her chest as far as she could. The shock was burning away and it was being replaced by overwhelming grief. She slipped her hand under her glasses as the tears erupted from her eyes and fell sideways down her face. She wrestled the other arm out from under her body and used it to cover her mouth, muffling the sobs that wracked her whole body.

“You can’t,” Shiro said weakly again, as if he was crying too. “We need you, Katie. You can’t.”

“Shiro.” Allura’s voice was gentle as a summer wind. The weight was lifted from Pidge’s body, but she did not stop sobbing. She let herself curl into a tighter ball, ignoring the warm hand placed on her side. 

“Oh, Pidge.” Allura’s voice was soft in the silent room. “Pidge… Pidge…”

Pidge couldn’t ignore the voice this time. It was soft like the silk trimmings of a baby blanket, and it was wrapping her up in good will. She let it remind her of a simple, warm time years ago when she was a child. She thought of huckleberries in summer and patches of sunlight on the porch. She remembered her mother’s lasagna and her father’s eyes. She saw Matt counting out the last of his allowance, splitting it with his little sister Katie so she could buy candy.

“I’ll never stop looking for Matt,” said Shiro quietly from somewhere beside Pidge. “Never.”

“We’ll all look,” said Allura in a even quieter voice. “The Galra be damned.”

Pidge had to sit up and look at them, but the task seemed as insurmountable as finding her brother. But she _was_ going to find him, and so she could get up, too. She unclenched her muscles, letting them relax before slowly lowering her arms and pushing against the floor. Her glasses were fogged and wet, so she removed them and looked at the two people sitting on the floor beside her. 

Allura had her hand on Pidge’s arm, even after the latter had moved into a sitting position. Her smile was small but warm, and her eyes soft. Shiro was sitting with one knee bent in front of him, propping up his head with his hand as if he didn’t have the strength left in him. He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were wet and rimmed in red. He was watching Pidge with remorse, and she felt a stab of guilt. She suddenly wanted to fling herself at him and smother him in a hug, like she would have with Matt. He was bigger than her brother, but the way he looked at her, and got frustrated with her, and took care of her…

Pidge’s vision blurred again as a fresh wave of tears materialized on her eyes. She missed Matt so much that she was neglecting to see that family was all around her. Allura was gently squeezing her arm and Shiro looked like he might start crying again. The haze of warmth and love was palpable.

When she was calm, they sat for a few more moments in silence. The Crack was still there, hovering behind Shiro’s hunched form but the sounds had stopped. Another mystery that Pidge would have to uncover.

“S-Shiro,” Pidge started to say, though she wasn’t even sure what to begin saying. He was shaking his head and he moved to stand up. 

“Not right now,” he said, but his voice was gentle. “You need to rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.” He wasn’t firm or angry, but somehow Pidge knew she would not be able to change his mind. That was OK, because a sudden sleepiness had come over her. She stood up clumsily with Allura’s help and the three of them staggered out of the room and closed the door.

Shiro parted with them down the hall, but Allura made no move to leave. “He isn’t angry,” she said, her voice still not back to full volume. 

“He should be.”

Allura looked down at Pidge, but far from frowning, she actually looked at peace. “Yes, he should. I should be too. I should be furious. But…” She paused as she led Pidge to a corridor she had not been down before. “That’s for another time.”

Allura’s room was as large as those in the aft guest wing, but it felt much different. It looked lived in, with clothing strewn over the back of chairs and the books half read on the bed. The overhead lights were not illuminated, and instead a soft yellow glow filled the room from a lamp on the bedside table. 

“I know I’m not your mother,” Allura said as she rolled back the covers of the bed. “I can never fill that role for you. None of us will be your real family.” She stopped and looked around at Pidge and her face was crestfallen. “But, you’ll stay, won’t you?”

Pidge couldn’t understand how there were any tears left in her body. She took off her glasses to rub furiously at her eyes. “I-I won’t.”

Allura gathered her into a hug, and it was the most wonderful thing she had felt since leaving Earth. She dropped her head on Allura’s chest and closed her eyes. She smelled like berries and soap and something else Pidge didn’t recognize.

She slept in Allura’s bed in a borrowed shirt. It was too soft and Allura shifted too often, but that night, Pidge did not dream.


	5. Chapter 5

Pidge stared at her hand, a swath of blood smeared on her fingers. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and panic replaced the warm, comfortable feeling she had felt when she woke up. Allura was gone and the big bed was empty, but a cup of steaming tea was waiting on the side table. 

“Allura?” Pidge called in a high tone. She tried to suppress the desperation in her voice and failed. “Allura?!”

Pidge patted her stomach, trying to find the source of the blood. A deep, dull pain was holding her lower stomach hostage and her chest ached, but when she felt around there was no wound. Allura entered the room, her eyes wide and concerned.

“What? What is it, Pidge?” She swept over to the bed beside Pidge, holding a tray of food. She put it aside on the end of the bed when she saw Pidge’s outstretched hand.

“Oh… Oh dear.” Her shoulders relaxed and she released a breath with obvious relief.

Pidge watched her with an open mouth. “I’m _bleeding_ ,” she said desperately. “I don’t know where… I just woke up like this!”

Allura pulled the blankets and sheets back, relieving Pidge’s skinny bare legs. The borrowed shirt was several times too large for her and almost reached her knees. It was white, but for a large red blotch near the bottom hem. Allura sighed and put a hand on Pidge’s narrow shoulder. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you about this?”

Pidge was staring at the blood on the shirt, her newly awoken brain starting to whirr into gear. Her stomach rolled over, making her feel momentarily nauseous. “It… can’t be...” she whimpered.

“It’s alright,” Allura said, crossing the room to open a compartment on the wall. “It’s all just a part of growing up. Although, it seems awfully late, but I suppose humans are different after all.”

“I was…” Pidge swallowed, feeling a sorrow rise in her chest that was different from what she had felt yesterday. “I was hoping maybe… Maybe it wouldn’t happen to me. Maybe I would get lucky and…”

“Not be a girl?” Allura turned, holding a white box in her hands. Her expression softened to pity, but she said no more on the matter.

Pidge looked at the blood again, feeling miserable. But this-- the pain, the blood and the realization that she was a flesh and blood human being-- was bringing in a new flood of feeling into her limbs. She remembered yesterday’s feelings of guilt and emptiness like it was a hundred years ago. A new page had turned in her life, and while it would be stricken with obstacles and heartache, it was something she wanted to live.

“I don’t like this,” Pidge decided after Allura led her to the large adjoining bathroom. 

“One rarely does,” Allura said with little sympathy. “You’ll get used to it, I’m afraid.” She set Pidge up with the proper gear of a young Altean girl: a soft grey pad for soaking up blood and a capsule for the pain. Pidge took the medicine like a good patient and spent some time looking at herself in the full length mirror.

She could see Matt in that face, she decided, but there was also something else. She turned her head back and forth before running her eyes down the length of her skinny body. Finally, she knew what she saw. She saw Pidge, who was a Paladin of Voltron and the pilot of the Green Lion. She saw Pidge the scientist and the youngest member of her awkward space family. She saw her flaws and her strengths and they belonged to no one but herself.

Shiro was waiting outside Allura’s door like a father awaiting the birth of his first born. It was hard to see him at first, but Pidge forced herself to look at him in the face. She held his gaze for long time until she realized that she didn’t need to say the words, and that he knew she was sorry. 

The rest were in the kitchen, and they all stopped talking abruptly when she came into the room. Even Lance was quiet.

“I have something to say,” she began, but she was cut off by a forceful hug from Hunk. He pulled her into his large embrace while stroking her hair and making noises like he was talking to a baby animal. “Ergg-- gerroff me Hunk!”

“Oh, my Pidge,” he was saying as he released her and held her at arm’s length. He studied her, his eyes searching her face the longest. “Something is different about you.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Keith with his arms crossed typically over his chest. “I don’t see any changes.” He walked across the room for good measure, and Pidge could feel herself colouring under the close inspection.

“I don’t know,” Lance added, joining the gawking crowd. “Hunk might be onto something. Did you grow or something?”

Pidge pushed Hunk’s big hands off of her shoulders with some effort and stepped back, feeling flustered. “No,” she said with some determination. “I’m still me.” Hunk looked unconvinced, but Lance shrugged and turned back to the kitchen.

“We’re glad you’re OK, Pidge,” Keith said in a rare display of feeling, before joining Lance at the table.

“So long as we’re all here,” added Coran, who had entered the kitchen behind Allura and Shiro. “We have to talk about our next mission.”

Pidge realized with a start that she had not thought about the Crack all morning. But with everyone there, listening, she felt embarrassed to be the one to bring it up. Were they just going to ignore it now? She swallowed her hesitation before speaking up.

“What about the void?”

Coran didn’t look up from the console device he was holding. “Ah, that cleared right up! It disappeared sometime in the night.”

“What?” Pidge looked as incredulous as the others, and even Allura was watching Coran with a look of concerned interest. 

“I checked this morning-- it’s gone! That’s all wrapped up, so it’s time to think about the next mission.” He swiped on his console and an image of a planet appeared on the big screen in front of them.

He was right. Pidge stood in the aft guest room alone later that day, staring at the space in the middle of her containment field that used to contain the Crack. The room seemed bigger now, like a lung that was finally able to expand with air. It was warm, too, and the smell of the musty bed linens was sharp. 

Pidge expected to feel frustrated. She had so many unanswered questions and usually that many loose ends would drive her insane. She would never know what caused the anomaly, or why it made such a noise. But it was gone, and so were the deep, dark thoughts that had swelled up inside of her small body. She would not miss it, no more than she would miss a nightmare. She would still have those, of course. She would still miss her brother and wake up shaking in the night, but now she knew where Allura slept.

She packed up her tools and computer, leaving the room as clean as they had found it. Then she closed the door and locked it.

“It did sound like Matt,” Shiro said when she met him unexpectedly outside the door. “I didn’t want to admit it, but when he was hurt, he made the same noise.”

Pidge shivered but pushed the dark thoughts out of her head. “He’s alive,” she said with confidence. “And we’ll find him.”

“Yes,” Shiro agreed. “We will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a strange journey this has been. To those who actually stayed with me, thanks for reading.
> 
> This was inspired by 'The Hole in the Sky' story in _Tales from Watership Down_ , which always unsettled me.


End file.
